Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda on Friday expanded his council of ministers on Friday. Dahal, who is also the chief of the Maoist Centre, a party with just 32 members in the House of Representatives, managed to have eight members in the cabinet including himself whereas only four members of the faction-ridden Nepali Congress took oath of office and secrecy on Friday. President Ram Chandra Poudel administered oath of office and secrecy to the new ministers, weeks after the Prachanda government secured a vote of confidence in Parliament. Prime minister Dahal, who is likely to undertake an official visit to New Delhi in mid-April, has retained the Ministry of Foreign Affairs while he has allocated the ministry of Energy, a major area of interest in the bilateral relation, to his party colleague Shakti Basnet. Still, the Cabinet is seven members short of its maximum strength of 25. With the change, Nepal now has two deputy Prime ministers – Narayankaji Shrestha (Maoist Centre), in charge of Home, and Purna Bahadur Khadka (Nepali Congress), who is also heading the Ministry of Defence. Dahal, sources said, asked the Nepali Congress to decide on the four remaining ministers.
